In the Philippines, newspapers have two types: tabloids and broadsheets. Both are distinguished in terms of size, circulation, and themes and ideologies.
A tabloid's spread is roughly 22 inches long. Circulation-wise, broadsheets are no match to tabloids. In 2003, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), with a circulation of 260 000 constituting half of the national circulation, is outpaced by the top three daily tabloids, People's Journal with 469 464; Bulgar, 450 000; and People's Tonight, 365 811.
Unlike broadsheets that are printed in English, most tabloids are published in vernacular languages, making them an easy reading for C, D, and E markets. Broadsheets are perceived as intellectual newspapers that contain explanatory and investigational reports as compared to tabloids that are considered as the “poor man's newspaper” because of their emphasis on sensational crime stories, gossip columns, and other so-called “junk food news.”
But do these perceptions still hold true?
On Oct. 16-20, 2006, the PJR Reports conducted a content analysis of 15 tabloids and results were very surprising as no front page story was devoted to entertainment. Fifty-six percent of news articles tackled politics and governance. Reports on current issues and controversies placed second with 21 percent; followed by stories on crime, 10 percent; and metropolis incidents, 4 percent.
However, tabloids made up for entertainment news in their inside pages. About 35 percent of their articles pertained to showbiz news. Sports stories came a distant second, 17 percent; politics and governance, 15 percent; and crime, 13 percent. The study also showed that tabloids still run sex stories and columns, but they are no longer as prevalent as they used to be.
In a comparative content analysis conducted by The Makati Science Vision editorial staff on the PDI and the Bulgar's July 22, 2007 issue, it was found out that Bulgar, despite its smaller size, packed more articles, photos, and headlines than the PDI. Bulgar's front page had 13 headlines, all of which had stories in the inside pages, as compared to the PDI's nine headlines, five of which were in the same page. Bulgar also had six photos, all in black and white, while the PDI only had two colored photographs and one cartoon. Including the inside pages, the PDI, with 22 pages in the main section, had an average of two stories per page, while Bulgar, with only 16 pages, had an average of three.
The content analysis also found out that of the 13 headlines in Bulgar's front page, eight pertained to entertainment news and three were political stories, although two stories pertained to showbiz personalities-turned-politicians, as compared to the PDI, eight of the nine front page headlines were socio-political news stories.
Bulgar also devoted more opinion columns as compared to the PDI. Nine of the 16 pages in Bulgar had opinion articles, while only two pages in the PDI were devoted for the opinion section. The PDI had only six columnists, while Bulgar had 18, which included Imee Marcos, Cristy Fermin, Korina Sanchez, among other famous personalities.
The newspaper industry, despite losing ground in the national audience share, still maintains an 82 percent audience reach in 2000 in Metro Manila. Thus, it is still presumed that it is as influential in the capital as television, which has a 96 percent audience reach. Broadsheets are also considered as the agenda-setter, since radio and television rely primarily on what is written on them.
Tabloids, on the other hand, are still not taken seriously. According to Rina Jimenez David, this problem could be traced to the perception of tabloid's selling points of sensationalism, gore and sleaze, and sex and violence. In fact, circulation standards then was for the front page to have total nudity for those below 25 000 copies, tits only from 26 000 to 100 000 copies, and stars affixed as covers for nipples for above the 100 000.
CONTROL AND OWNERSHIP
The history of Philippine journalism is defined by the influences of the Nineteenth Century European press, when newspapers were the carriers of liberal ideas and were the centers of political activities. Over the next century, newspapers proliferated during periods of wars, revolutions, and upheavals. Successive waves of colonizers-the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese-used the press to promote colonial agenda and to impose severe censorship.
One lasting and important legacy of the 50 years of American colonialism is the privately owned mass media forms competing in a free market. After the proclamation of independence and establishment of a democratic government, a free press patterned after that of the United States was manipulated by competing business and political groups to advance their interests and ideologies.
In “Lords of the Press,” Sheila S Coronel lamented that newspaper ownership poses real constraints on the freedom of the journalists to report freely and responsibly because most newspaper owners are business tycoons who operate interlocking corporate concerns and who use newspapers to promote their business interests and to influence a society where, in doing business, whom you know often counts more than entrepreneurial expertise.
